Aronian-Kramnik Match in Zuerich 2012

Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik drew a 6 game match in Zuerich 21st-28th April 2012
Kramnik organised the event and it was
announced by Kramnik during the Wijk aan Zee tournament.
This highly anticipated match was organised in part to help fill the gap in the schedule for these players created by the absence of the Linares and Amber tournaments and also as training for the Candidates tournament in London now to be held in 2013.

The final game of the Zuerich Chess Challenge match between Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik finished in an interesting
draw in a Berlin Defence, which left the final score at 3-3.
Aronian repeated 1.e4 which was one of his clear goals for the match ("I haven't played e4 seriously
for such a long time. I think I learned a lot.) and after Kramnik repeated the Berlin Defence Aronian
played the quiet 4.d3. Both players admitted to playing more freely than they would have had this
not been a friendly match. Aronian thought himself lucky to have drawn the match as
"I was in reality playing very adventurous moves where I shouldn't have." Today
Aronian sacrificed a pawn with 19.a5 which led to very interesting complications. Kramnik's
28...Kf8 was bad as he overlooked 29.Ra4 but Aronian immediately blundered back with the
terrible 30.c4? Kramnik's 33.e3 looked strong and winning but things turned out to be more
difficult than that and the game ended in a draw. 33...Ne7 would have been far more difficult to
meet. An interesting and enterprising match.

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